WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist and author of the NYT best-selling novel GUN MACHINE. His graphic novel GLOBAL FREQUENCY is being developed for television by Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX. He is the writer of the graphic novel RED, adapted into the film starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren. His next book is NORMAL from FSG.

Not In London Today

Published July 7, 2005 by Warren Ellis

Because people are asking: I’m not in London today, so I’ve missed the

whole thing. For those of you still trying to contact people in London, be

advised that the mobile phone network is still locked off in some areas of

11 Comments

The has been an awful, lingering confusion surrounding these attacks. It is as if the impact of the breaking news has thrown up a cloud of dust blotting out the finer details, leaving everyone grubbing around in the dark for hard facts.

On the BBC they had eye-witness reports from one of the underground stations and the site of the bus bombing, and then a further list of areas around London where there may or may not have been explosions. No-one seemed to sure whether these uncorroborated reports were real or just Chinese whispers.

I sat there thinking: â€˜People have mobile phones now â€“ we should know exactly whatâ€™s going on.â€™ Of course, the networks become overloaded and I suppose itâ€™s not in the interests of the emergency services to give out more details than are necessary.

My brother called at midday to ask if I was in London. I had been in two minds whether to go and obviously this and put paid to it.

I hope all your loved ones are safe. All my icelandic friends that live or work in central London
seem to have overslept today, people who normally would be using the tube at that
time of the day.
Take care

July 7, 2005

Damien

Glad that you\’re alive. This is a horrible thing, all the way around.

July 7, 2005

Damien

Glad that you\’re alive. This is a horrible thing, all the way around.

Wondering if something like this happened in the USA, if it would be enough for the President to declare outright martial law. Would that extend his Presidency, if it was extended into voting 2008?

July 8, 2005

Poopants the scrunge

Sounds a bit too like a transmet storyline – espescially now that theres this spin on who told the Israeli Finance Minister and when – This tragic event is starting to smell fishy…not least because it doesn\’t benefit the people who are accused of setting the bombs..Sounds like a distraction play to me…

July 8, 2005

Lyra Mubarak

Especially since the M.O. is similar to the IRA bombings in the 80s.

July 8, 2005

Carl Horn

In fact, of course martial law was not declared in the United States even on the far deadlier occasion of 9/11 (it should be noted that, I believe, as many if not more U.K. citizens working in the WTC died in that attack, as in the bombings in London–this is not the first time the British have been the victims of al-Qaeda).

The use of martial law in the U.S. has historically been associated with civil insurrections (as in the Los Angeles riots) or actual attack by a military force (as in Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast during WWII).

Martial law (like a return of the draft) would not be seen as a politically advisable response, even to dramatic examples of terrorism, unless attacks were accompanied by panic and disorder genuinely beyond the scope of the civil authorities. But the record thus far in both America and the U.K. suggests that people do a fairly good job of keeping their heads about them, even when caught up in this kind of attack.